China: International Private Banking Institutions

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1. Introduction
In China, HNWIs (High Net Wealth Individuals) who has more than $1 million for investable assets are fast growing. It provides the huge opportunity for the private banking industry. Private banking could be defined in various ways. Basically, private banking means managing all aspects of a customer’s financial life. However, especially in Asia market, it is not only just financial management, also including all aspects of social life and different stages of the life care.
Figure 1. Comparison of private banking and traditional retail banking
Customers Service offering Main revenue source Person in charge
Traditional banking Mass Financial management Net interest margin Bank teller
Private banking HNWIs Financial mgt, advisory service, Value added service Fee Private banker

Private banking has been one of the most attractive segments for the financial institutions. Revenue of Chinese commercial banks heavily depends on NIM (net interest margin) which is the difference between the interest incomes. However, to become global financial players, commercial banks should diversify revenue source. Private banking business is fee based service, so it makes good fee revenues. In the past few years, the average profit margin of United States private banking business was over 30%, and the average annual earnings increased by 12%-15%, which were far better than the traditional retail banking business' profitability. The profit margin of Chinese private banking is almost half of the United States because Chinese HNWIs have not been familiar with private banking fee. However, the profit margin in China is growing fast.
Figure 2. Regional profit margin of private banking

Private banking in China is still in the begin...

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...the front line. However, as the private banking business is pretty new in China, it is very difficult to recruit experienced local professionals in the market. There is a shortage of skilled talent in the market. There are simply not enough local private bankers to meet the increased demand. Competition for talents is intensifying and leading to rapidly rising compensation costs. Trust is an essential part in customer satisfaction. To build the trust and loyalty between HNWIs and private bankers take long time and a lot of investment. Changing private bankers often is huge risk for private banks. As a result, the financial institutions have raised compensation costs to retain the experienced private bankers. The famous international private banking institutions pay 30~40% more for the very talented private bankers and it makes harder to retain high quality talents.

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